AOL tweaks email system after spoofing breach, but change could affect legitimate senders

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - AOL Inc.
aol
on Tuesday said it has changed its system for processing email in response to a security breach, dubbed spoofing, in which spammers hijack a user's account to send emails to other users. AOL said the new system will "reject email messages that are sent using forged AOL Mail addresses." However, the new process could have an impact on other legitimate senders of email, the company said. "We recognize that some legitimate senders will be challenged by this change and forced to update how they send mail and we sincerely regret the inconvenience to you," AOL said in a post outlining the change. "AOL is taking this step because spammers are sending email that appears to be from valid AOL email addresses," the company said in a statement. "In fact, these emails do not originate from AOL or our customers. Rather, the outgoing addresses are edited by the spammers to make them appear to be legitimate AOL email addresses. By initiating this change, AOL Mail, along with other major email providers will reject these spoofed email messages, rather than deliver them to the recipient's inboxes."

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